Long Lost
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1825a. Long ago, the three noble ladies had taken to a life of defending the realm. But then one of them vanished, and life changed... - Trinity series - 5TH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE, day 19a of 21.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 86th cycle. Now cycle 87!_

**_IT'S THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE OF_**_** GLEEKATHON!** \- Five years! Five years! *insert flailing* Okay, not quite, but by the end of this cycle, it will have been five years of daily stories (sometimes twice a day! ... and for seven very frightening days a couple years back, three times a day!). It will also be the end of this crazy ride. I started thinking about ending gleekathon months ago, and I wanted to finish my ongoing series before that happened. It made it so I could finish out this fifth year, and it couldn't be any better that this cycle is actually ending on October 22nd 2014, which was the day it began, in 2009... Now here we go!_

**This story is a 'Genre swap' for _One, Two, Three_, a Trinity series story originally posted on April 17th 2014.**

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**"Long Lost"  
(Older) Brittany/Santana, Quinn/Spencer (OC)  
Trinity series**

_**Genre swap: Period**_

As children, they had been all three of them fostered at Lady Sylvester's castle. They had come from different lands, different worlds, really, but they'd grown together, and for that they had become bound in friendship, even sisterhood. What had brought them together most of all had been a desire in them to do more when they grew up than to marry lords and fill their halls with sons and daughters. They knew better than to assume that the kingdom was a just one. They saw suffering, plenty of it, too much, and a day had come when they had taken it upon themselves to do something about it.

In time, a legend had begun to spread to all ends of the kingdom, of a trio of mystery knights, appearing out of nowhere along the roads, into the villages, wherever they heard of anyone, from the lowest to the highest of births, who was left suffering, and they didn't leave again until that suffering had been brought to end. There were plenty out there who would have wanted nothing more than to eliminate them, but they were never successful.

Only now, of course, no one had seen the mystery knights in nearly two years. Some believed they had finally been stopped, and there were plenty of tales out there, plenty of pretenders to the altar of the one who might have finally wiped out the trinity knights. The glory of the victory was not one celebrated by all. For every one who was glad to be rid of them there were two more who felt some of their hard earned hope fizzling away all over again. None of them knew the truth, none but the 'knights' themselves.

After finding means to evade the 'duty' of it for as long as she could, the Lady Santana had been made to wed, and from that union was born a daughter called Florence. In her husband's castle, the lady had ensured a place for her friend and sister, the Lady Brittany. None in their House would have argued, and if anyone knew where their guest truly spent her nights, especially in those long months when their lord was away. It was kind of her to ensure their lady was not alone after all.

The fact was, the only reason these two had allowed their lives to change in such a way was that their third had been lost.

The Lady Quinn had been taken from them two years prior, kidnapped, ransomed… They had more than enough means to pay for her release, and they had done as much, paying equally for house guard who'd been taken with her. Instead of having them returned however, they had been let know that the lady and the guard had been slain.

This was as much as they'd known, and in their grieving the ladies had known very little more than the fact that their old lives were gone, ended. No more mystery knights, no more fighting the good fight. And when that was gone, all they had left to them were their titles, and the promise of smaller victories… and each other.

And then Lady Santana's husband had taken ill, far across the kingdom. Along with much of their household, including the infant Lady Florence, and their guest, the Lady Brittany, they had travelled as fast as the roads could carry them. It had been in vain, as by the time they'd reached the city, their lord had succumbed. But not all was lost.

They had been drawn in by the sounds of what they soon realized to be a wedding feast. They had not meant to intrude in any way except that the young maid who had attended them on their arrival had informed them that her lady was to be wed that day. And when she had pointed her out, the bride and the groom as well, the two visiting ladies had been given the great shock of their lives. Because up at the table of honor, sitting happy and smiling were the bride and groom, only they were not strangers by far.

The young maid, a village girl called Sophia, had found her lady and her new lord husband, informing them there that the widow of the sick man they'd tended to before his death had arrived and wished to speak with them. As much as they would have liked to put this task aside until a day that wasn't their wedding day, it was their duty to see the lady and tell her of her husband's last agonizing days.

Sophia had led them off and showed where the lady would be waiting, and her mistress asked that she see to Lord Daniel in the meantime. The maid bowed her head and went to see the months-old boy.

They were known here as the Lord Thomas and Lady Alexandra. The now dead man had been found barely conscious out on the road a month before, and he had been brought into their home, where they had attempted to bring him what care he might need. When he'd been well enough to compose a message to his wife, they had seen to its being sent with haste. His health had rapidly deteriorated after this. They had barely gotten a message back from the wife, saying she was on her way, that the man had died, and the best they could do in order to reach her before she arrived was to send one of their men, Simon, to intercept them on the road and escort them in. They had never realized they would arrive on the day of the wedding… and they had known even less that they wouldn't be strangers at all.

"Quinn? Spencer…" Santana had breathed in surprise when she'd risen at the sound of the door and found the pair of them standing there. "You're… you're alive."

"How did you…" Quinn was just as baffled, but then it clicked. "Your… husband?" she looked from one to the other, but then she also saw the young girl, in Brittany's arms, the very image of Santana. "Your husband," she looked to her, and her old friend bowed her head.

"I don't understand… We were told you'd died," Brittany struggled not to cry. The bride and groom looked to one another. It was time they knew.

"It was the only way to protect you both. I was discovered, as a mystery knight. I never meant for you to be found, this was the only way. Forgive me, sisters."

THE END

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**A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
****always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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